The present invention relates generally to the field of multimedia and, more particularly, to a technique for locating an item of interest within stored representation of data.
There are a large number of organizations that presently have substantial amounts of audio, video, and image content in analog form. Many of these organizations are currently moving toward putting such multimedia content into digital form in order to save costs in the areas of data storage and retrieval. That is, similar to other types of data, multimedia content can be easily stored on and retrieved from relatively inexpensive digital storage devices.
The migration of multimedia content from analog form to digital form also provides an organization with the ability to store, search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from distributed sites. That is, an organization having a number of distributed offices can store, search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from a centralized storage facility over a proprietary intranet computer network such as, for example, a local area network (LAN), or a public internet computer network such as, for example, the world wide web.
Furthermore, the multimedia content itself may be distributed. That is, an organization that is global in nature may have a number of distributed permanent archival storage locations where digitized multimedia content is permanently stored, or a number of distributed temporary storage locations where digitized multimedia content that is associated with work in progress is temporarily stored. Similar to above, such an organization could also store, search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from the distributed storage locations over a proprietary intranet computer network or a public internet computer network.
Additionally, an organization may want other entities located outside of the organization to be able to search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content stored and maintained within the organization. For example, an organization may want to sell multimedia content to an outside entity, which may then use the purchased multimedia content for some purpose such as, for example, a news broadcast. Similar to above, the outside entity could search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from a storage facility within the organization over a proprietary intranet computer network or a public internet computer network.
However, despite the above-described benefits associated with digitized multimedia content, organizations presently have little or no means of searching within multimedia content, organizing information about multimedia content, and delivering multimedia content in a ubiquitous manner. That is, there are presently little or no means for searching inside streams of multimedia content (e.g., audio/video streams), adding meta-information to multimedia content (i.e., annotating multimedia content) for purposes of indexing within multimedia content, and providing universal access to indexed multimedia content over a variety of connection speeds and on a variety of client platforms. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a technique for organizing distributed multimedia content and for searching, browsing, and retrieving such organized distributed multimedia content in an efficient and cost-effective manner so as to overcome the above-described shortcomings of the prior art.
The primary object of the present invention is to provide a technique for locating an item of interest within a stored representation of data.
The above-stated primary object, as well as other objects, features, and advantages, of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description which is to be read in conjunction with the appended drawings.
According to the present invention, a technique for locating an item of interest within a stored representation of data is provided. The item of interest is preferably located within a particular one of a plurality of stored representations of data in a network having a plurality of network stations. In one embodiment, the technique is realized by first searching a plurality of stored annotations corresponding to different items within a plurality of stored representations of data to locate an annotation of interest corresponding to the item of interest, wherein the annotation of interest has an associated search identifier. A search request is then transmitted, from a first of the plurality of network stations to a second of the plurality of network stations, for the search identifier and an associated address identifier corresponding to a location of the particular one of the plurality of stored representations of data within the plurality of stored representations of data. The address identifier is then received at the first network station, preferably from the second network station.
In accordance with other aspects of the present invention, the first and the second network stations are typically different network stations, and the data may include audio and/or video data.
In accordance with further aspects of the present invention, the plurality of stored annotations are beneficially stored at the first network station, and the search identifier is beneficially stored in association with the annotation of interest at the first network station.
In accordance with still further aspects of the present invention, the search identifier is beneficially one of a plurality of search identifiers stored at the second network station, and the address identifier is beneficially stored in association with the search identifier at the second network station.
In accordance with still further aspects of the present invention, the plurality of stored representations of data are beneficially stored at a third of the plurality of network stations.
In accordance with still further aspects of the present invention, wherein the search request is a second search request, a first search request for the item of interest may beneficially be received at the first network station, preferably from a third of the plurality of network stations.
In accordance with still further aspects of the present invention, the address identifier may beneficially be transmitted from the first network station, preferably to a third of the plurality of network stations.
In accordance with still further aspects of the present invention, the annotation of interest beneficially has an associated location identifier corresponding to a location of interest within the particular one of the plurality of stored representations of data. The location identifier is beneficially stored in association with the annotation of interest at the first network station, and the address identifier is beneficially stored in association with the annotation of interest at the second network station. Also, the address identifier and the location identifier are beneficially transmitted from the first network station, preferably to a third of the plurality of network stations. Further, the address identifier and the location identifier are beneficially combined in an extended URL format. Additionally, the annotation of interest is beneficially scored based at least in part upon the location of interest within the particular one of the plurality of stored representations of data.
In accordance with still further aspects of the present invention, wherein the annotation of interest is one of a plurality of annotations of interest, and each of the plurality of annotations of interest is associated with a respective location within the particular one of the plurality of stored representations of data, each of the plurality of annotations of interest is beneficially ranked based at least in part upon the respective location of each of the plurality of annotations of interest within the particular one of the plurality of stored representation of data.
The present invention will now be described in more detail with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof as shown in the appended drawings. While the present invention is described below with reference to preferred embodiments, it should be understood that the present invention is not limited thereto. Those of ordinary skill in the art having access to the teachings herein will recognize additional implementations, modifications, and embodiments, as well as other fields of use, which are within the scope of the present invention as disclosed and claimed herein, and with respect to which the present invention could be of significant utility.